Up next: A year of personalized print

Pantone just named Radiant Orchid the official color of 2014. And while we don’t have an official comment on the pinkish-purplish hue, we have a declaration of our own to make: at Oregon, 2014 is the year of personalization.

Marketers everywhere are trying to create impressions that are as tailor-made as possible. When you browse the web, you see ads based on your past browsing history. Stores you visit give you specialized coupons so you’ll come back soon. The same thing is happening with direct mail: the more personal you can be, the better.

But don’t think of personalization as a burden. Personalization, at its core, is all about data. Modern technology has given us tools to understand customer data and use it in ways we could never have imagined. Sure, we have some learning to do. But the prospect of personalization is an opportunity: to speak directly to the people we want to reach, better than ever before.

There’s plenty to figure out about personalization. It’s still a relatively new concept, and there’s no one way to do it right. Strategies that seem foolproof aren’t always so. That’s where paying attention to data comes in.

We’re helping one of our great clients, Dayton’s own WYSO radio station, with personalized print over the next year. We’ll help them learn about all corners of the process, like how to build, sort, and “clean” a mailing list. How to choose which aspects of a campaign to personalize. How to use customer data responsibly. How to track and measure progress and refine campaigns over time.

We invite you to join us on the journey. We’ll post blogs throughout 2014 to fill you in on WYSO’s progress and share new pieces of the personalization puzzle.

We also have a challenge: in 2014, commit to personalization. Learn from us and from WYSO, and share your own progress along the way. We can’t wait to see what you’ll find.